


Variations in Instinct: Immutable Productions

by cloneclubdrinkstrolley (direwolfofhighgarden)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canon Related, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/direwolfofhighgarden/pseuds/cloneclubdrinkstrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima knew that Beth was losing it, but just how much did she know?</p><p>Beth and Cosima are friends, close friends, in fact, and Beth seems to have the tendency to travel across the border to Cosima's Minnesota apartment. What exactly do they talk about? What events transpired that led up to what occurred in the first episode of season 1?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations in Instinct: Immutable Productions

**Author's Note:**

> A multi-chapter collaboration that can also be found [on tumblr](http://lifeorbeth.tumblr.com/post/105824003645/immutable-productions-chapter-9) with the wonderful [lifeorbeth](http://lifeorbeth.tumblr.com).
> 
> This is a canon-related work that was inspired by our musings of Cosima's particular comment about Beth and how she "was losing it, like, clinically". We wanted to experiment with this dynamic and we wanted to share our headcanon about what Beth and Cosima's relationship was like. We wrote this as a precursor to what was going on with Beth before the events we see in the first episode of season 1.
> 
> So with that! To actually read this: Laura starts off the first segment, then after her split is my portion, then we alternate from there.

Beth pauses before knocking on the apartment door. This is insane, just turning up like this; she knows it is. And yet, here she is. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, trying to muster up the courage to just knock already. This is stupid, but she’s so far from home that she can’t just leave.

She takes a moment, leaning back against the wall across from the door, closing her eyes. She came here to forget, and that’s definitely not what’s happening. She can’t shake the quivering in her shoulders, the cold fear in her chest, the guilt sitting heavy down in her stomach. The only things she can do is breathe and lie. Maybe they’re the same thing.

"I thought I spotted your car outside."

Beth jerks away from the wall and searches for the source of the voice. Coming down the hallway, sporting that signature cheeky smile, is Cosima, carrying her books and a brown paper bag full of groceries.

\- -

“Oh, you weren’t home?” Beth can hear her raspy voice scratching to existence when she speaks up. She’d been silent for so many hours, she didn’t realize she hadn’t been speaking to anyone for so long.

“Now I am, so if you wanted to invite yourself in, you can go ahead.”

Cosima is standing as gracefully as anybody could while balancing a bag of groceries and a precarious stack of books. It’s only Cosima who can make anything look easy and carefree. She’d never be malicious, even if she wanted to be, and Beth believes this is perhaps the girl’s blessing and her bane.

She’s used to Cosima’s cheerful… everything. Cosima is so ridiculously happy pouring herself a glass of water or walking down the street. If somebody bumps into her, she’s so delighted for that brief moment of interaction. If somebody insults her, she’s excited for the opportunity to talk with them and understand their motivations. Cosima is just so content with everything, and Beth can never tell if she envies it or if she finds it profoundly naive.

In spite of Cosima’s general zeal for life, or because of it, Beth finds that she’s still able to humour herself around Cosima.

“Oh, shut up, you’re going to drop all your things.”

Beth can feel a shadow of her own grin shaping on her lips, and she can sense Cosima taking it all in, just waiting for Beth to smile. She expects Cosima’s intent gaze to be searing so many damn emotions into her, and she’s correct when she looks up and meets Cosima’s eyes. There’s a only a beat of silence before Cosima speaks up again, a glint of her signature mischief sparkling in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, we both know I’m fantastic.”

As if she isn’t damn characteristic enough, she winks at Beth, smiling happily like she’s just made the best decision ever as she moves toward the door. She makes a show out of exchanging her hold on the items and reaching into her impossibly deep pockets for her singular key.

Beth almost feels panicked as she watches the various fruits in the bag gradually make their appearance, ready to topple over onto the floor, but Cosima finally unlocks the door and the bag of groceries leans back into her chest. Beth feels slightly relieved, and she doesn’t think for a moment how ironic the feeling is.

\- -

When she enters, Beth is struck by the opulent colors and the use of dark, heavy fabric to accent the even darker wood. It creates an intimate space while, at the same time, showing style. The cramped, cluttered space is so skewed from what Beth’s accustomed to that she can’t help but find it endearing. Cosima’s apartment looks lived-in; Beth’s looks like something out of a catalogue.

Beth sits down at Cosima’s table—littered with textbooks and unstapled journal articles and scientific studies—and raises the bottle of wine she brought. “I got the cabernet you like, fresh from Toronto.”

"Oh, score!" Cosima exclaims, pumping a fist. She disappears again, and Beth can distinctly hear the clinking of glass and the opening and closing of cabinets. Cosima returns gripping two large wine glasses between the fingers of one hand and a corkscrew in the other. Beth watches as Cosima deftly maneuvers the old-school corkscrew to remove the cork from the wine bottle. It’s an intricate process.

Cosima perches on the corner of the table—since Beth took the only available chair—and sips daintily at her wine. She leans back on one arm, glancing at Beth from the corner of her eye. She sucks on one corner of her lip before distracting herself with the wine again. When she finally speaks, she’s staring off out the window, not even looking at Beth. Cosima is gesticulating with the wine glass which makes Beth impossibly glad that Cosima doesn’t have carpet.

"So, like, do you often make spur-of-the-moment trips across the continent to visit people without warning them ahead of time?" Cosima shrugs, turning to give Beth that quirky smile again. "I mean, hey, no judgment. I’m just wondering if I’m the only one."

Beth swallows her shock with a mouthful of cabernet. She uses it as an excuse to buy her brain time to process a response. A lie, perhaps? The truth? “I, uh, well, I had some time off from work and wanted to get away from Paul, so…” Beth tries to shrug as casually as Cosima does, but almost ends up pouring wine on her expensive coat. She decides not to try that again.

Cosima raises a knowing eyebrow. “Oh, and here I thought you just wanted the pleasure of my company.” She takes another sip. “At least you have good taste in bribes.” 

\- -

“I do… I mean, about wanting to see you. I didn’t mean the bribes.”

Cosima stares at her quizzically, still waiting patiently. What exactly she is waiting for, Beth doesn’t really know, and she’s already thinking it was a bad idea to drive out to see Cosima. She wishes Cosima would stop staring at her so intently, with so much… caring in her eyes.

Beth continues uneasily, wanting to get away from the unnerving feeling she gets with being the subject of Cosima’s observant prodding. “But I do have good taste in bribes too.”

Cosima laughs again, her whole body shaking with delight as it always does, and the wine glass in her hand is swishing what little liquid is left dangerously. Cosima, ever the brilliant scientist, never commits to something half-heartedly. If she wants to laugh, her whole body laughs with her. If she needs to say something, her whole body talks with her.

It’s a mystery to Beth how the girl can be so in tune with her body, how everything is so interesting to her. It bewilders Beth how everything Cosima needs to say is so important that her hands fly all over the place with her, wanting to help everybody get on the same mental level as her.

Cosima regards Beth with the residual happiness of her rebuttal quelling her heart. She looks at Beth with a subtle carefulness. It’s a curious expression mixed with the sentiment of not wanting to break something and not wanting to push Beth over the edge. Ever the brilliant scientist, Cosima can still understand Beth better than perhaps even Beth gives her credit for.

When they talked on the phone, she could instinctively hear Beth’s sighs filling a prolonged silence even before they could manifest into existence. She could imagine Beth pacing wherever she was, or fidgeting with something in her hands if she had to remain seated. During Skype calls, Cosima could see Beth’s tense shoulders, slouching with the weight of something far too heavy for her to bear.

Where Cosima’s limbs express themselves freely, Beth’s body tells a story of restraint and total disconnect. Her words are choppy; they’re carefully deliberated, and, even before a conversation occurs, she has implemented responses that she can choose at her disposal.

Cosima’s voice fills the silence. “I miss your jokes. Your wit is something I’ve always liked about you… only you can pull it off like you do.”

Beth knows what Cosima is doing. She can see Cosima gauging her reaction, anticipating how the comment will sit with her. Cosima is always planting a piece of herself in someone, placing the seeds of whatever they need into them and waiting for something to come of it. Cosima is incredibly intuitive that way. She knows how to push people’s buttons; she knows how to get them riled up. She knows all these things about people and learns their nuances so quickly, but getting under their skin has never been what she wanted.

She planted a piece of her heart in Beth, and Beth can see through it. Cosima is so in love with the world. She offers every piece of herself to every person she meets, and then offers more to those whom she knows need it the most. Cosima and Beth share the similarity of feeling things so intensely; where Cosima is profoundly moved by everything life has to offer, Beth is deeply affected by it all.

“So, anyway, why are you really here?”

“What? I told you, I wanted to get away from Paul, and I had some time off.”

“You hardly talked about him when you called. If he was really bugging you, I’d hear a lot more about him than I have. What’s up?”

She leans back on her other arm, switching the glass to her other hand as her head tilts after the question. The gesture is innocent enough; on anybody else, it would have seemed taunting and mean, but Beth knows better. Cosima has an insatiable hunger for knowledge; if she wants to know something, she will know it, and she is getting closer to knowing the truth.

“Beth, look, I don’t want to corner you or anything. But I know you. If you wanted to ask me a question or something, you would just call me. If you had to come all the way here just to see me, something’s really up, and I want to know what.”

Beth stares at Cosima, blinking herself into processing a vocal response as her body follows suit with the typical mechanical reactions: jagged sighs escape her lungs, her ribs are triggered into constraining her innards, her hands are suddenly sweaty, and she’s fiddling with her hair, even though it’s put up in a tight bun.

“Beth, you know I want to help you. If you need time to hatch out your words, I’m here. I always want to help you.”

Cosima offers a reassuring smile, a lopsided smirk that lacks the lustre of mischief or playfulness. Beth has only seen it a few times, and it is always disconcerting. It is about as close to expression of pain that can be seen on Cosima’s face; there is never any outward display of something other than happiness on her face, and seeing anything else on Cosima dismays Beth.

Beth never knew just what exactly to call the look. Seeing it now, she understands what words had escaped her before and she can finally place the name: grief. Whenever Cosima wears that smile, it is grief that paints her face too.

\- -

Beth sets down her glass, still mostly filled, and leans back in her chair. She watches Cosima take a slow sip, leaving the last few drops to settle in the bottom of her own glass. Beth covers her mouth with a hand, her thumb pressing into her cheek and the side of her pointer finger resting just under her nose. Rather that staying in that position, she moves to rub under her nose. Restless movement. Cosima’s eye catches it.

Beth waits for Cosima to urge her on, to try to pry the information out of her, but that would be out of character. There are others who would dig like that, though: Alison, or maybe Katja. Beth chose Cosima for this very reason; she can pick and choose what to share, and the scientist won’t think less of her for it.

Having the ability—no, the privilege—of withholding information gives Beth the barest hint of power, of control. She hasn’t had much of either in the past few months. Still, guilt stirs uneasily in her gut at the thought of leaving out crucial information.

They don’t need another Aryanna. Another Janika. Another Danielle. The weight of those three lives cut short is a heavy burden for Beth, who had information that could have possibly saved them. If only she’d known how critical that information was.

Her fingers claw at her thighs now, digging into the fabric of her jeans. For all her mental preparation—sorting through potential conversation topics and drafting preemptive responses—whenever Beth faces Cosima, she loses all of it. She wishes that, just once, she could allow herself to break, to shatter and let someone else deal with the fragments. Cosima is the type of person who would take the time to stitch her back together piece by piece, with that steady and exact scientist’s hand and a sister’s care and investment.

Beth doesn’t have that kind of time. Starting from scratch isn’t an option. She has to work with what she’s been given and what she’s fought so hard to discover.

"Some of… us have been killed in Europe," Beth supplies quietly. "Murdered with the same knife, three of us."

Cosima blinks, leaning forward, setting her glass aside. Her attention resets and focuses like a camera lens. Blink, quick jerk of the head, eyebrows converge, raise, converge, leaning on closer. It’s both mechanical and organic, like everything Cosima is. “What? Do you know why?”

Beth shakes her head. Lie to survive, Beth tells herself, clenching her fists to keep her fingers from shaking.

Cosima’s gaze flickers down at the movement, then returns to settle on Beth’s face. She really doesn’t miss anything.

"What’s the, like," Cosima waves a hand vaguely, "gameplan, here? What preventative measures should we take?" She tilts her head and her gaze softens. "We can stop this, you know. Just tell me what you need me to do."

Beth is fixating on the blind trust Cosima exhibits. There’s no plea for more evidence, no questions about background information. She is taking everything at face value. Beth wonders whether this makes Cosima a shitty scientist, but she appreciates the good it does for Cosima’s character. It gives Beth hope, honestly.

"I plan on following up on a lead when I head back home," Beth continues.

She notices the sight tightening in Cosima’s lips. Beth is using an avoidance tactic. Again. But there are never any specifics where Beth is concerned. The only person who ever knows the full picture is Beth herself. A security thing, she tells herself. A trust thing, a voice in the back of her mind corrects her.

\- - 

Cosima’s eyes are laser pointers, branding a wordless message into Beth that she knows will not go unnoticed. There are so many things Cosima is saying, but what she settles on is something she knows will appease Beth’s paranoid avoidance and will actually sit with her.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Do I ever?” 

“You drove all the way out here to see me; I have sound reasoning to believe you’ll do something rash.” Cosima pauses, and the corner of her mouth quirks into a smile. “And, I know how much you hate hearing it, but you’re about as much me as I am you. If that’s anything to go by, I could give you lots of advice for a lot of things right now.”

“Shut up, man.” 

Cosima chuckles as she pours herself another glass, moving in Beth’s general direction and hovering above her.

“But, like, really… does Alison know?”

“About what?” Beth feigns ignorance, buying her a handful of extra seconds.

Cosima raises her eyebrows, scanning the entirety of Beth’s face over her glass as she takes a long drink. She was only referring to the newly revealed information, but Beth and Cosima both know there is so much that is waiting to scratch at the surface.

Cosima watches Beth attentively, examining the hints, waiting for the tell-tale signs of something to crack in Beth. For someone almost so identical to her in look, there is a permanent torture in her eyes, an absolution she constantly seeks and will somehow never get. Somehow, this look both scares and angers Cosima.

She chooses her words carefully, tackling one issue at a time.

“About what’s going on in Europe. Does she even know there are some of us out there?”

Beth’s response is immediate. “She’s got a lot to worry about; I’m not telling her.”

“What, and you don’t?”

Beth’s lips tighten into a firm line, her jaw setting into steel.

Cosima continues in a rare show of defiance, challenging Beth not out of malice but of urgency.

“You don’t think you have enough to worry about?”

“I have plenty.”

“So stop carrying this by yourself.”

“She is not going to find out.”

“Not from you, maybe. But if this gets too dangerous too quickly, I think she has a right to know.”

"And what the hell does it matter about who knows what? Do you want me to broadcast to the world? I’ll make a PSA."

“This involves all of us, Beth. If we’re being killed because we’re all genetically identical, we have the same right as anyone else to know what’s going on, just as they’re entitled to know what we know.”

“Is this another jab about Sarah Manning?” Beth scoffs. “Like I give a shit about some British criminal or her family.”

“You have to care, especially about Sarah and her family; she’s different.” Biologically different, environmentally different. Quite possibly the kind of different Beth needs.

“Fucked if I care! Different or not, it’s all the same shit anyway. I’ve had enough.”

“I know, Beth, but-”

“Listen to me. If this goes to shit, I need to know what you’re going to do.”

“No. We are so not talking about this-”

“We _have_ to.”

“I’m not going to let you talk about the hypotheticals, okay? You’re going to be with me, every step of the way. Got that?”

Cosima stops abruptly, Beth not speaking up to continue; the silence that follows encompasses them like a heavy fog. They both inhale deeply at the same time, and the synchronicity would have been humourous on any other day. Beth is the one who pursues the conversation, breathing like she’s struggling to hold onto any semblance of functioning sentience.

“Aren’t you always the one who’s talking about alternatives and hypothetical situations? Aren’t you the one who likes talking about the what ifs? You always have the back up plan.”

“Not for this. I’m not making a damn back up plan based on what happens to you—whether or not it’s at your own hands. That’s fucked up and you know it.”

The vulgarity is an unwelcome change in Cosima. The foreign word hangs in the air as its bluntness cuts straight into Beth. Cosima continues amassing her blows and unleashes them at Beth in the most dangerous form of aggression; she makes her points in starts and stops, and she keeps an even tone.

“Look, I know how bad you have it. I can’t say I know fully, but I know what you’re feeling, because I care about you. We are stuck on this crazy ride… we all are. So you can’t say you’re alone in this.”

Cosima pauses, both for dramatic emphasis and to make sure Beth is still listening to her.

“And because I care about you, and I think you care about me, I think I have the privilege to call you out on your bullshit… and I think it’s pretty selfish that you expect me to just sit here and not take it to heart when I hear you talk about kicking the bucket like it’s your only option.”

“I can’t tell Alison. I can’t tell her.” Beth’s voice is small, high, breathy.

“If you don’t, no one else will, and she doesn’t deserve that.”

“Is everything my damn responsibility now?” And the vulnerability is suddenly gone, replaced in a flash with Beth’s flaring temper.

“No, it’s not. But you’re making it your burden to bear. You’re not the only one in this, Beth. If you tell me the truth and let me in, I can help you. You have to trust me. You have to trust me completely.”

\- -

Beth purses her lips. Then she gropes for her abandoned wine glass and downs the rest. She wishes it wouldn’t be too abrupt to ask for another. She stares at her fingers clutching the stem of the glass, her forearm resting on the tabletop, anything but Cosima. There’s nothing she can do to escape.

Dammit, why did I come here? She spins the glass absently between two fingers.

She works her jaw, licking her lips, chewing the inside of her cheek, obviously displaying the internal debate she’s struggling with. She rubs absently at her nose with her free hand. Then she makes a conscious effort to be still.

"There’s so much I… I don’t know how to say." It starts as a whisper between her fingers, the words slipping through the cracks and barely reaching Cosima’s ears before they die away. Beth continues, her voice still soft, fragile. "So many things—theories, rumors, hunches—that I can’t verify." Her eyes flick up, meeting Cosima’s, searching for another piece of the scientist’s heart to take.

So that she might feel that warmth again.

Cosima is drawn closer, extracts Beth’s hand from the tabletop beside her, clutches it. “I don’t care. Okay? We can sort through it together—real and not.” She gives Beth’s hand a squeeze. “I can help you, Beth. I can help you if you let me.”

Beth’s gaze settles on Cosima’s thumbs, tracing little circles around her knuckles. “I’m not ready to tell Alison. I will—I promise I will—but I’m not ready yet.”

Cosima nods, and Beth can feel the weight of her clone’s gaze. “I’m just worried about you, okay? When you take turns shutting me out and inviting me in and shutting me out again, I don’t know what to think.” Cosima continues in a whisper. “I care about you, Beth. I don’t want to lose you—not when we’ve lost so much already.”

"I just… I wonder about them—all the time," Beth’s voice sounds distant to her own ears, like the words are pouring free of their own volition and she’s miles away from it all.

"Who?"

"Aryanna and Janika and Danielle," Beth clarifies, slipping a little closer. The haze in her mind is clearing—marginally.

"What about them?" Cosima asks, leaning in as Beth’s volume drops.

Beth blinks, tilting her head as she stares up at Cosima. “I wonder what it felt like… in their last moments, when… when…” She stops. Dare she tell Cosima about Helena?

"When they died?" Cosima’s voice is thick, but her gaze is steady.

Beth tries to steel herself, tries to remind herself that this is important—so impossibly important. She can’t back away from this; she’s in too deep and, as loathe as she is to admit it, she’s drowning. She needs help. Cosima is offering help. She knows her voice is quivering when she keeps going, but she still feels so far away. “When they looked at someone—someone who looks just like us, who’s one of us—and watched her kill them.”

"Holy shit," Cosima breathes, straightening her spine and inadvertently pulling back from Beth. "One of us? This is—this is insane. Why would one of us be killing us?" She drops Beth’s hand and runs both of hers over her dreadlocks, holding her head like she’s trying to keep it from cracking down the middle. She sucks in a deep breath, holds it for a beat too long, then lets it out. She hops down off of the table and starts to pace. "What could that possibly get her? Does she hate us? Is she the original, like," she waves one of her hands vaguely beside her ear, "trying to terminate the experiment?"

"Worse," Beth says, reaching into her bag and pulling out a file—looking police-official—and proffering it to Cosima.

Cosima rifles through the pages in silence, turning them sideways to examine pictures and flipping back and forth between certain documents. Beth retreats to the kitchen to refill her glass. She downs half of it before even thinking about rejoining Cosima in the living room. Takes a few deep breaths, centers herself. Eventually, she tops off the glass again and wanders out.

"Religious extremists?"

Beth nods. “Yeah, they’ve got a compound out near me, run by an MIT grad. Science meeting religion. What do you think of that one?”

"But why her?" Cosima asks, looking at the digital rendering Beth came up with: their face with poorly-dyed blonde, curly hair. "What did they have to tell her to make her do it?"

"If I ever meet her, I’ll be sure to ask," Beth mutters, taking another long sip of the wine. It tastes sour in her mouth—and that’s a shame; it’s really quite good wine.

The file slaps against Cosima’s thigh as her arms go slack. “Beth, don’t do that.”

"Do what?" Beth raises an eyebrow, challenging Cosima to just say it.

Cosima keeps her mouth shut for a moment. “Can I keep this?” she asks quietly, brandishing the file again. When she gets the nod from Beth, she pulls some books out of her bookcase and slips the file into a black portfolio which she zips closed and tucks away.

Beth leans back against the table, planting one palm flat on the surface. Call it an anchor. “I think about it all the time, Cosima.”

Cosima doesn’t respond—for an impossibly elastic, infinite moment does not even turn. When she does, her eyes scan Beth, eyebrows converged, head tilted on its usual off-center axis. She gives a small-scale sweeping gesture with a hand, moving from the wrist rather than the shoulder, but still getting that elegant, smooth motion before her fingers curl into an almost-fist. An invitation.

"Death; I think about death."

\- -

For a moment, it seems as though Cosima hasn’t heard Beth’s confession. Beth knows better than to assume it takes Cosima longer to process heavy sentiments; it’s quite the contrary. She’s proven correct when Cosima speaks up, and Beth almost forgets about the heaviness inside her that is replaced with the curiosity of what exactly the eccentric girl will say.

“In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.”

Beth squints at Cosima, trying to assess the enigma Cosima presented. Cosima elaborates on her last comment after seeing the perplexed look clearly written on Beth’s face.

“ _One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich_ … it’s a book, this story about the guy, Ivan, who was accused of becoming a spy after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war in the second world war. He’s innocent, but he’s still sentenced to ten years in a forced labour camp.”

Beth sinks comfortably into the chair as Cosima tells her anecdote.

“So in the camp, they have a squad leader who receives their work assignment for each day, and the squads are fed according to how they perform. So everyone in each squad is forced to work together and they pressure each other to do quality work because if anyone is slacking, the whole squad is punished.”

Beth sits forward in her chair like she’s bracing herself for something. She waits patiently as she soaks in Cosima’s words. The scientist, satisfied with Beth’s attention, continues telling her story.

“But like, even then, there`s a surprising loyalty that exists among all the workers. Ivan teams up with other prisoners to steal little things like extra bowls of soup, and everyone gets involved, and like, even the squad leader does too. It’s a total revolution, and it’s awesome.”

“Wow.” Beth breathes the word; it’s barely a whisper and not at all an exclamation.

“Yeah, sometimes I feel like we’re the prisoners. They have numbers on them too. That’s always the thing isn’t it? Numbers are barcodes, they objectify people to the lowest denominator possible. But it’s not even about being a person anymore. It’s dehumanizing. You become nothing, almost worse than nothing. Ivan was 854.”

Beth’s eyebrows crawl up her forehead as if they were asking some silent, rhetorical question, and she hopes if there’s anything that eludes Cosima, that this passing thought would be it. Perhaps Cosima doesn’t know about her ID tag, something she can call her own.

Beth doesn’t know what the significance is to Cosima that compelled her to tell Beth about Ivan’s number. She doesn’t know whether or not Cosima is pondering the possibility of having her own number. Cosima most likely knows about it, no doubt she is curious to know what sort of identifier she has, but Beth already knows.

A lopsided grin spreads on Cosima’s face, and it’s about as much indication as Beth needs that Cosima doesn’t see her internal struggle. Each syllable that echoes silently in Beth’s ear is an inch deeper into the heart of her burden. Beth has to bite on her lip to keep the convulsions at bay. It’s a visceral, emotional reaction, and it always starts with a trembling lip.

_324b21._

Perhaps Cosima can come to know it, accept it as the many other things she’s come to learn about herself, but Beth will not have any part in that.

The smile on Cosima’s face only grows, and it’s the saddest thing Beth has ever seen. It’s impressive, really, what with her line of work, she should have seen plenty of horrific things, but she was certain nothing beat this experience.

The tag number sits heavy with Beth, each fragmented syllable still ringing in her ear. It dug deeper into Beth’s wounds, but it doesn’t with Cosima… it never would with Cosima. She’s a girl, still just a girl, and she is an enigma that still entrances Beth to no end. She is even apt to say that Cosima is a mystery that perplexes her much more profoundly than any existential crisis she could have.

Sometimes, Cosima’s contentedness with the world annoys Beth to the point of repulsion and annoyance, but it’s followed by a wave of self-loathing when she catches herself seething about Cosima’s blinding little-girl naivety. Cosima carries herself like the woman she is, stronger than Beth could ever hope to be, though Beth would never admit as much.

Even still, Cosima has the wisdom of exploded stardust, talking so intimately about everything like the bodies in the sky whisper secrets to her. It would have been no surprise to Beth; ever since she knew Cosima, everything seemed to fall into her orbit. She found herself gravitating to her even when nothing but a telephone line bound them together.

Cosima smiles like she accepted laying in the coffin that was built for her long ago, the coffin that was bestowed upon her the moment she was conceived like some twisted sense of a dying will. Their very lives are a coffin, subject to the coffin, cannot escape the coffin. They are all meant to die; they were never meant to live.

It’s a terrible thing to understand about one’s existence, and it hangs especially onto Beth like anvils strapped to either ear, chanting relentlessly of the inherent wrongness that is her life.

Somehow, Beth drifts back into the room, still hovering between being present in the moment and being stuck in her reverie. There are gears upon gears turning in Cosima’s head, and her eyes are scanning Beth like an efficient supercomputer; nothing in the world could be farther from the truth of what Cosima was than that. She was anything but robotic.

“So, what say you, detective: Do you believe in God?”

Beth sits idly in her seat, still on the edge of the chair with her hands folded in front of her. It’s the first time that night that they ever kept still.

“What?”

“Sorry, was that too much existential babble for one night?” Cosima smiles apologetically, and there is a flash impulse in Beth that comes and goes in the same moment: one that wants to embrace Cosima and never let go.

“No, sorry, I don’t know. I just- yeah…”

Beth trails off, as she’s done so often recently. Her mother would have had quite a lot to say about Beth’s affinity for leaving her thoughts suspended into nothingness, but her old childhood habit never quite died with the derelict adolescent she was in middle school.

Cosima’s smile transforms, morphing fluidly into one of encouragement as her eyes dart to the balcony door. She nods in its direction as she stands up, expecting Beth to follow.

“Come on, let’s go out.”

She’s already closed half the distance to the door, and Beth wedges herself out of her chair to go after Cosima. Beth doesn’t even have the time to shut the door before Cosima’s talking again, leaning on the railing comfortably.

Everything she does is so easy, and everything she is could be described in metaphor. Beth was never a sap for cliche, never will be, but she’s starting to realize there is really nothing that could describe Cosima adequately. There is really nothing that could ever do Cosima justice.

This time, Cosima’s easiness translates to a bird ready for flight, basking in the chill night air like she is so used to it. And perhaps she is used to nights like these, with no sign of the cold afflicting her body; there is no shivering in her exposed arms where Beth might expect it. It was unfair, really, how Cosima could be so immune and predisposed to everything from brisk evening chills to being faced with the danger of being murdered by her genetic identical.

For someone so resilient and buoyant, Cosima is never negatively charged. Her effervescence allows her to be so deeply affected by everything in her life. She reacts to every situation, every person, every idea with the kind of passion that should have rendered her immensely vulnerable, but it hasn’t yet.

There is a lot to be said about Cosima, but Beth has never quite placed exactly what it could be.

_In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars._

There is an entire universe in Cosima; the space surrounding her is somehow pliant to her touch, and she is able to bend and hold the material of her world in her deft fingers. Beth had neither the motivation nor the honour of exploring that space, and she so wished she was more in order to delve into it. More of what, she couldn’t quite say; she merely wished she was more. There was not much that she was, though, and that burden also weighed heavy with her.

Truthfully, Beth didn’t believe in God, never had. She didn’t understand the significance of a higher being, something out there that was either malevolent or ignorant, allowing bad things to happen to good people, or knowing what was happening but choosing not to stop it. Too often she’d encountered this redundant question, sometimes in the form of crying mothers, sometimes in the raw horror of what man can do, sometimes in the mornings when she looks in the mirror and sees a database of names, faces, women just like her.

Beth doesn’t believe in any god, has neither the time nor the patience to understand the significance of holding onto an intangible hope. Lately, however, Beth has found herself staring into that same void: the one that got mothers crying and victims changed permanently. This same void had the terrors that would not remain nightmares exclusive to sleep, and Beth could feel them creeping into her waking life.

She finds herself holding onto something in the intangible nothing, where there is darkness and an ethereal emptiness. She doesn’t understand the hope of holding onto a higher being, but she realizes now, after driving across the border to meet with Cosima, what certain things in her life mean to her.

Beth finally understands what she does believe in. She understands what hope means to her, and she realizes now just who it is she clings to when she’s staring into that intangible abyss. There is not much that can describe Cosima properly except metaphor, and there’s one memory that etches itself into Beth’s mind.

She can only think how strange it all is, that her subconscious can take information she retained long ago and relate it to the current moment. It’s as if something in her had foretold that a moment like would happen, and that, even further, it knew the importance of this occurrence.

A particular quotation from assigned readings in a high school English class that evidently meant something to her if it stuck with her for so long. Whether or not something in her knew she’d ever need to remember it again, she recalls it now and it’s one thing in her life that has aligned perfectly for her. Needless to say, she’s relieved that something can come together for her for once.

_She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together._

There’s not much that can describe Cosima except metaphor, and if Beth has to believe in something, she realizes now who it is she holds out for.

\- -

"I have a very tenuous relationship with God, myself," Cosima continues, staring off at the Minnesota horizon. She’s looking beyond the edge of the universe, no doubt. Because if anyone can see all the way to the edge of existence and keep on looking, it’s Cosima. "As a scientist, like, I know that things like immaculate conception and ‘suddenly there were people’ aren’t even remotely probable." She leans out over the railing, bracing on her forearms and letting her long fingers dangle. "But sometimes I wonder if there is someone manipulating only the tiniest things—like a, like a painter adding the smallest little details on an almost-finished work: things like an extra dot of yellow in a lit window or a softer edge on a shadow."

Beth, too, leans against the railing, facing the opposite direction from Cosima. She’s tempting fate and the structural integrity of Cosima’s balcony, but she doesn’t feel particularly inclined to stare off at the scenery. It looks almost like home in the dark, with the layer of white covering everything and the whole world sounding sort of muffled under its weight. The last thing she wants is to think of home.

Cosima lets out a little laugh—where anyone else might give a soft little snort, she goes all the way. “I just,” she shakes her head. “I’m just so fascinated by the idea that everything we see, everything that’s-that’s beautiful in the world: they’re all products of chance. So I go through life and constantly ask God—or whatever else there might be—for some type of sign. For a while, I would look for things like rare flowers or something, but then I realized where the real miracles lie.”

Beth catches Cosima’s expectant look, so she plays along: “And where’s that?”

"In people, Beth."

Beth can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes and releasing a quiet sigh through her nose, the way a dragon might blow smoke. After all that she’s seen, there’s no way she can put any faith in a statement like that. She can see the “miracles” in science, in their creation in particular—because Cosima has explained on more than one occasion how impossible it should have been. But people… People hunt miracles, searching for them for validation or pride or any reason at all. And they bulldoze everything in their way.

Cosima, though—Cosima is a miracle. But that’s the thing about miracles, Beth’s always been taught: they are few and far between and worth hanging onto when you find them.

"What? You don’t think so?"

Beth blinks, glancing over to see Cosima gazing back. “What? That everyone’s special? That we’re all just miracles in flesh and bone?” She shakes her head. “No, with all that I’ve seen—all that I’ve done—how can you possibly expect that of me?”

"Because," Cosima begins with that unfaltering smile, "you’re in the best position to appreciate it."

Beth pushes away from the railing, wandering on the small balcony with its metal table and pair of chairs. Definitely too cold to sit on. She paces for a moment before rejoining Cosima, pressing her palms flat against the bannister and letting her shoulders creep up towards her ears as her chest sags. She doesn’t say anything. She just stands, staring at the ground three storeys below.

"You know what people are?" Cosima asks. "Like, what we’re made of?"

"Wait, let me guess," Beth mutters. "DNA and proteins and fats, right?"

Cosima gives a sort of half-nod. “Well, yes, but think smaller. Where did our atoms come from?”

Beth shrugs. “I dunno, where does anything come from?”

"How philosophical of you," Cosima taunts, shimmying her shoulders a little. "But no, we’re all made up of stardust, you know. Like, way, way back in time there was the Big Bang—or, at least, that’s the current accepted theory; for hundreds of years we believed the sun revolved around the Earth, so, like, we really can’t know for sure. Anyway, in this Big Bang, there was a massive—I guess explosion—that sent particles flying in all directions. Pieces of stars and moons and planets: celestial bodies."

Beth scoffs again. “Well, it’s not limited to people. Everything is made of stardust, then.”

"True," Cosima affirms, using a pointing finger to accent the statement. "But there is so much more to us." She absently runs a hand down her arm; Beth wonders if she’s getting cold. Finally. It’s damn freezing outside and she’s not wearing much in terms of outerwear. "You’re the one who thinks about death all the time," she resumes, giving Beth a very pointed look. "Where do you think we go?"

Beth finally glances up. She finally dares to look at the celestial bodies they’ve been talking about, and she remembers why she hadn’t wanted to look. Stars always make Beth think of her mother. Her mother, who had learned the constellations at a very young age from her own father, Beth’s grandfather, subsequently passed that knowledge onto Beth. They had spent most summer nights during Beth’s childhood lying on a hammock in the backyard, looking up together. Beth’s head swells with fond memories.

But each one comes with a bitter note when she remembers when she last saw her mother. It was before her last tour. She had smiled at Beth, fully transformed in her dress uniform. No longer Mom, but instead a Marine.

Beth feels her shoulders quiver with an involuntary shudder that spreads like a shockwave from between her shoulder blades. Strange that she always feels her mother there. Not in her chest, not in her stomach, but in her shoulder blades. Her mother who wasn’t biologically related to her at all.

She shakes her head, feeling Cosima’s eyes on her, expecting a response to her question. What was it? She panics for a fraction of a second before she remembers: Where do we go when we die?

"I like to think," Beth begins, her voice weak and scratchy from God only knows what. "I like to think that something comes of us. Well, according to my minimal science education—bear with me here—everything needs energy to happen, right? So let’s say that memories, thoughts, our consciousness: that’s all energy."

"And energy can’t be created or destroyed," Cosima catches on, nodding encouragingly.

"Yeah," says Beth, thrown a little by the interjection. "So the energy just… goes outwards. Maybe towards building or destroying stars out there somewhere." She stretches an arm out lamely to the heavens, letting it drop back feebly after a moment.

Cosima looks contemplative, her eyebrows scrunching together in that way that means she’s working through a problem. She glances over at Beth from her periphery, and Beth realizes, instantly, that Cosima knows about her mom. The detective can’t help the reflex: her fingers claw at the banister, curling closer and closer to a fist but not quite making it before Cosima’s hand is covering one of Beth’s.

"That’s why you can’t look at them, isn’t it?" Cosima’s voice is just barely above a breath, barely more present than the breeze that can’t even disturb the hair that has escaped Beth’s bun. "They remind you of her."

Beth tries to shrug. “Yeah, well, she taught me a lot about them.” She points out several constellations and rattles off the names without missing a beat. She notes the raising of Cosima’s eyebrows further up her forehead.

"From dust to dust," Cosima concedes with a sly grin. "Stardust is, of course, preferable to real dust—probably much nicer to look at."

Beth rolls her eyes, feeling that strange pressure between her shoulder blades lessen. But it’s still there and her spine feels cold, beyond the bite of a Minnesota winter. Beyond the fear—or maybe expectation—of death.

From dust to dust, she agrees, glancing up at the sky and seeing only blackness as a wave of clouds pass overhead. Blotting out the stars and their memories, leaving only an infinite blackness. The void that has expanded to fill every shadow, every single place where light is spread thin. It has invaded Beth as well, dug itself a hole inside her and settled in, gnawing at her insides whenever it pleases.

Maybe that’s the chill between her shoulder blades. Maybe she isn’t human enough to feel her mother there anymore. Maybe it’s just that void. Calling her.

She closes her eyes and rocks back on her heels. Wonders how hard it would be to lean forward just an inch too far.

"Where do you think Aryanna, Janika, and Danielle are out there?" Cosima asks, dragging Beth forcibly from her dark daydream.

Beth’s eyes flutter open. She glances up. The clouds have passed. She turns to Cosima. “I don’t know,” she muses, turning her back on the stars and the balcony, back towards the door and the safety of another glass of wine and a trip to the restroom to take some of her meds.

Cosima turns after her, still lounging against the railing. “You don’t even have a guess? You, the one who knows so much about astronomy, can’t even fathom where in this, like, endless universe of ours three souls would go?”

The wind picks up, ripping Beth’s hair completely free of its bun, tugging the strands like a mischievous child. She tries to tame it with her fingers to no avail. She heaves a frustrated sigh and rakes it out of her face before it comes whipping back almost immediately.

"Just because I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean I’m ready to play one."

Cosima’s head shifts to tilt the other way, her eyebrows raised. “Well, I’d say probably Gemini or Castor and Pollux, myself,” she quips.

Twins. Two pairs of twins. Castor and Pollux, the demigod sons of Zeus and the mortal Leda. Leda, the name tastes sour in her mouth. Beth remembers a time when she yearned for knowledge like that; she can still recall most of the Greco-Roman gods and demigods. She can recall all the things they were gods of, the people they slept with, who was rivals with whom, and which wars they caused. But it all comes back to the stars and oh, how she hates them now.

But Cosima, whose name means order but also has direct ties to the cosmos, to the stars and the universe and all that makes them—Cosima is far too brilliant to make such a base connection. She wants Beth to correct her, and Beth itches to, but she doesn’t. Instead, she opens the door and glances over her shoulder. “Do you want to take your wine frozen or shall we head back inside?”

Cosima follows, and Beth hears the door snap shut behind them. Beth disappears with their glasses into the kitchen where the bottle awaits. She fills both and returns to the living space to find it empty. She glances towards the bedroom, finding her genetic identical perched on the edge of the massive four-poster bed. She passes Cosima her glass and leans against the wall opposite where the scientist sits.

"Why do you want to categorize them?" Beth asks, taking a sip.

Cosima makes a quizzical sound around a mouthful of wine. She tilts her head, and Beth can’t shake the feeling of being observed, being codified. She wonders if Cosima treats everyone like a puzzle or if that’s something reserved only for the Clone Club. Beth has only ever seen Cosima interact with her and Alison, after all.

"Why do they have to go to only one star or one constellation? Why doesn’t their energy travel infinitely outward? That sounds sufficiently scientific, doesn’t it?"

Cosima raises her eyebrows, clutching her glass with both hands in her lap. “It’s not all about science, Beth—not even for us. We’re more than just our biology.”

Beth wants to say, But this is physics, but she refrains. Cosima is right, as usual. This is about metaphors and things bigger than even science can explain. But categorization, assigning each of their doppelgangers only one greater meaning: it goes against even Beth’s scant beliefs. Assigning them greater meaning in general is not something she’d be on board with.

"What about Orion?" Cosima asks, interrupting Beth’s musing.

"The hunter?" Beth clarifies. When Cosima nods, Beth smirks. "You do realize that he got himself into a world of shit with the gods for being cocky as all hell, right?"

Cosima laughs through her teeth, her tongue following the laughter—appearing for a fraction of a second between her jaws. It was something unique to Cosima, something silly and casual. It reminds Beth that they aren’t the same, that they aren’t interchangeable. Maybe coming here was a good idea.

"Maybe Hercules?" Cosima suggests.

"You really like listing the assholes, don’t you?"

"Weren’t they all assholes, though?"

Beth pauses. “I mean, yes and no.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Most of the ones that became constellations were, but there were some pretty cool gods and goddesses.”

Cosima rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me: you wanted to be Athena when you grew up.”

Beth shrugs. “Artemis was pretty cool, too.”

"Oh my God," Cosima says with false sobriety. "You are such a nerd."

Beth nudges her shoulder. “Oh, shut up.”

When their laughter trails away, Cosima glances over, staring at Beth with earnest. “This is good.” She can’t help smiling, despite trying to be serious. “Welcome back, Beth.”

Beth knocks back the last of her wine, wondering how long this normalcy will last before the chill rears its head from between her shoulders. She hopes it isn’t fleeting, but knows that, without Cosima by her side, it will be. She knows it’s sudden, but she can’t help herself.

"Come back to Toronto with me."

Cosima bites her lip. “Beth, you know I can’t.”

"The university has PhD programs," Beth adds, grasping at straws.

Cosima catches Beth’s hand in hers. “I can’t, okay? I can’t. You will be fine. You’ll be fine. Just… talk to Alison? Maybe?” As Beth opens her mouth to protest, Cosima holds up her free hand. “I know, I know; you don’t want to worry her. Believe me, I get it. But Beth, this is important. Okay? Your life matters—it does. We need you, alright? You’re not, like, expendable or whatever. You just have to… I don’t know, take some time. Stay here as long as you want, but you can’t hide forever; I know that, and I really wish you could, but we have to keep pretending to be normal.”

Beth rakes her hand through her hair, latching onto a handful of it, half tempted to just yank it out by the roots. She continues in a whisper. “Sarah Manning is going back to Toronto next week.”

Cosima blinks. “That’s-that’s good! Good, what-what are you going to say to her?” Her eyes drill holes in Beth. “She can help us, I know she can. There’s a lot we can learn from her, you know? She has a kid, Beth—something that makes her different. It could mean so much for us to, like, study her and get to know her.” She pauses, mimics Beth’s sigh with a little bit more grace. “I know you don’t want to take on any more, but…” She gives a sympathetic smile. “But this is probably the most important discovery we’ve come across so far.”

Beth nods, pursing her lips. “I know, I know. I-I’ll think of something, I just… I need the week, you know? I need to… to clear my head or something.”

Cosima drops Beth’s hand, raising both of hers in a “hands-off” kind of gesture. “Of course, of course.” She stands up, snatching Beth’s glass from the floor. “We’ll finish the bottle, then we can talk strategy or, like, whatever you want. Deal?”

Beth nods. “Deal.”

As Cosima wanders off, Beth can’t help but think back to the mugshot of Sarah Manning. Wild hair, even wilder eyes, a criminal record several pages long. Of course, having an experienced thug could help where information gathering is concerned, but Beth is hesitant. Other than the badge, what does she really have that Sarah Manning doesn’t? She could even give Sarah the badge. Someone like her could probably manage it easily enough.

What would really happen?

She shivers again, feeling that familiar chill between her shoulder blades, and hopes beyond hope that Sarah Manning can live up to expectations.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo, now that you've gone through that, COSIMA AND BETH BROTP IS A THING. OH YES.
> 
> GEEKCOP, YEP. GEEKMONKEY HANDCUFFS.
> 
> I'll stop, okay.


End file.
